This invention relates to a packaged honeycomb catalyst assembly for use in a solid-gas catalytic reactor.
A conventional practice for packaging catalysts has consisted in forming unit catalysts of a honeycomb structure, relatively small in size, uniform in length, and having gas passages of a given cross-sectional contour, e.g., hexagonal, square, or triangular, and then stacking those unit honeycomb catalysts in layers within a housing to a packaged form. The unit catalysts, formed by extrusion or other similar technique, often are distorted, deflected, shrunk, or otherwise deformed. When a plurality of such deformed unit catalysts are stacked in the manner described, the individual catalysts, having unflattened outer walls as shown in FIG. 1, tend to be subjected to excess loads at the vertices of the rectangular solids, i.e., at the four corners (indicated at A). In the absence of any protective restraint, the catalysts are likely to move up and down, left and right, with vibrations caused during transportation or at the time of installation inside a reactor. Especially, in the axial direction of their gas passages, they are not fixed and can easily slip out of place and be damaged. The catalyst fragments or bits that have resulted from the damages can partly cover or close the gas passages, inviting dust accumulation and eventual choking.